Providing the Right Tools

If you are an employer, then you have an obligation to ensure that you take employee requirements seriously. Health & Safety, risk and hazard control, drinking water. The list of things to keep on top of varies according to work environment, and can be daunting. Anything which relates to employee safety must be treated as a priority, and second to this comes anything which affects productivity.

After all, you can’t have workers in an environment that isn’t safe. And if your workers can’t be productive, then you will suffer an impact on your business.

Employees need the appropriate tools to perform their tasks effectively. if you haven’t provided the right tools, then you are responsible for the employees lack of performance.

But have you considered communications? What tools do your employees need to communicate effectively with customers? Can customers reach the right person quickly and easily? Can your employees reach customers? What experience do your customers receive when interacting with your company?

All staff will require functioning communications, and all your customers will need a method of getting in touch.

This is particularly relevant to companies which offer remote working as an option for employees. Does a remote worker have the necessary tools to do their job? What do you have to supply? Are you responsible for their communications, or are they?

If someone is working remotely then you have to give them the correct tools. They will need a deskphone, a phone line, and phone number (at the very least). It would be unfair to request staff to use their own. Apart from this causing them an expense, it also carries some serious implications regarding worker security. Staff may have to reveal their own personal phone number, for instance, which brings security concerns.

So how do you tackle providing the right tools to your employees?

When it comes to communication, a VoIP system can help. You can supply your remote workers with a stand alone work phone set up. They can have a deskphone, and a direct dial phone number, just like an office-based employee. There is no reason why a remote worker should have a different set up to an office worker.

If you have music on hold, or recorded messages, then these will play as normal. The employee can transfer calls to colleagues,and have calls transferred to them. In short, you have extended your company telecoms to include the employee’s location.

You can also offer the employee a range of solutions. They can use a deskphone, or a softphone running on their PC. A softphone is essentially a piece of software running on your PC that allows you to make and receive calls over a VoIP system. You can also have a softphone to run on your smartphone, or on a tablet.

For workers or work teams using mobiles, there is also the option of a business-grade mobile SIM. The SureVoIP SIM offers a scalable solution to those managing mobile SIMs for business and enterprise.